The Democrats have made two areas a focal point in order to get their way: abolish the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court.
I covered the dangers of eliminating the Electoral College yesterday. Now GOP lawmakers in both chambers want to push a constitutional amendment in order to stop anyone from packing the Supreme Court.
A few 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have suggested placing more than nine justices on the Supreme Court: Robert O’Rourke, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttgieg, Sen. Kamala harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) will present legislation in the House on Thursday. From The Washington Examiner:
Green, R-Tenn., plans to introduce his legislation Thursday, and it will state that the Supreme Court “shall be composed of nine justices.” It also holds that the court will be reduced to nine justices if Democrats succeed in expanding the number of seats before Green’s amendment is ratified.”The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” it adds.“The temptation to create a Court of super-legislators must be resisted,” Green said Thursday. “Limiting the number of seats to the nine we have currently would help ensure the U.S. Supreme Court remain an impartial branch beholden to the Constitution and no political party.”
Green faces an uphill battle in the House since Democrats have control. He found help in the Republican-controlled Senate as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wants to propose similar legislation:
“We must prevent further destabilization of essential institutions,” Rubio tweeted. “Court packing is quickly becoming a litmus test for 2020 Democratic candidates. Therefore I will be introducing a constitutional amendment to keep the number of seats on #SCOTUS at 9.”Rubio also accused the proponents of expanding the court of doing so to advance a political agenda. “Proponents of a Democratic-led court-packing scheme foresee an impending ‘crisis’ – one that they use to justify their highly partisan tactics,” he said.
First off, let’s stop giving the Supreme Court so much power. Second, their job is to interpret the Constitution, which has no political leaning. Don’t push a justice to interpret the document based on their personal beliefs. I mean, the amendments in the Constitution have clear and precise language, especially the Bill of Rights.
If you ignore history, you’re bound to repeat it. Cliché, but true. The Democrats have to look back at the mess caused by FDR when he wanted to pack the Supreme Court because God forbid the justices ruled against two of his socialist programs.
Julien Zelizer, history professor at Princeton, wrote in The New York Times last October to remind Democrats of what happened when FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court:
The president handed conservatives an issue to paint him as a sort of American dictator. “The whole New Deal really went up in smoke as a result of the Supreme Court fight,” said Secretary of Agriculture and future Vice President Henry Wallace. The plan became a key talking point to foment a fierce political backlash against the F.D.R. and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. One constituent sent a senator a bullet wrapped in a paper that warned, “If you support Roosevelt’s court bill, we will get you — you dirty rubber stamp.”The court battle was a huge reversal of fortune for Roosevelt. Starting with the 1938 midterm elections, a coalition of Southern Democratic committee chairmen and Republicans came to power. They broke with the president by forming a powerful congressional voting bloc that had the muscle to stifle major initiatives at the high point of the liberal era.Health care and civil rights legislation, for instance, were two issues that the coalition held hostage. Southern committee chairmen worked with ranking Republicans to prevent legislation from ever reaching the floor. Senator James Eastland of Mississippi joked about special pockets that he had put into his pants to carry around the civil rights bills that he never allowed to come up for a vote. When bills did reach the Senate, the coalition joined forces to filibuster. The columnist William White called the Senate the “South’s unending revenge upon the North for Gettysburg.”
Yes, it will cause a backlash. If it causes the Republicans to get back control of the House and maintain control of the Senate and White House, that means Republicans will be able to choose more of their justices.
Do the Democrats ever think things through? Say they allow court packing. Do they think it will go away if we elect another Republican president?
The editorial board at the Toledo Blade also reminded the Democrats the fiasco over the elimination of “the filibuster for most presidential nominations.” During the votes for Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, I saw many conservatives on Twitter retweeting an old Harry Reid tweet that celebrated the Senate eliminating the filibuster.
Not only is packing the Supreme Court wrong, but Democrats better learn from history or it will come back to bite them in the butt.
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